Sunday, May 25, 2014

"Separation of Church & State" - What Does it Actually Mean? Part 2

The Separation Clause - Its Original Intent

an excerpt from The Separation of Church and State by Signature Historian David Barton

The phrase “Separation of Church and State” has been invoked
in over four thousand legal cases in recent decades. It is cited as the reason
for the removal of Nativity scenes from public parks, Ten Commandment displays
from courtrooms, public prayer from school events, religious symbols from city
seals, as well as the prohibition of several types of popular religious
expressions. The Founding Father most associated with the separation phrase is
Thomas Jefferson; and while the phrase is definitely familiar to most folks
today, its history is largely unknown.

Significantly, Jefferson was actually a latecomer to this
famous metaphor; for it had long since been introduced in the 1500s by
prominent ministers in England. Throughout the 1600s, it was carried to America
by Bible-oriented colonists who planted it deeply in the thinking of Americans
- all long before Jefferson ever repeated it. So what is the original and
historic origin of this now popular phrase?

Historian David Barton summarizes the story behind and our problem with the separation clauses today.

When God established civil government for His people Israel,
He placed Moses over the civil affairs and Aaron over the spiritual ones - the
nation was one, but the jurisdictions were two, with separate leaders over each.
The account of King Uzziah of Judah in second 2 Chronicles
26 provides a lucid illustration of how God insisted that the two jurisdictions
be kept separate.

Uzziah’s reign lasted 52 years (a remarkable span of time
for that era in world history). Prosperity and stability characterized his
civil rule; under his leadership the nation of Israel experienced unrivaled
innovation, new technologies and prosperity for its people that was famous
across the civilized world. His personal piety toward God was also very
well-known, and he openly and boldly honored God throughout his kingdom.

Then a dramatic change occurred. The turning point is recorded
in verse 16, with the revealing statement that Uzziah “entered the temple of
the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.” As a civil ruler over the
kingdom, he decided that he would also take upon himself the function of a
priest by burning incense on the altar; but that duty had been strictly
reserved by God for his priests. Uzziah, by trying to perform the
responsibilities of both Church and State and become the head of each, had thus
cross the line drawn by God himself.

Under this violation, the priests courageously and
forcefully withstood him (V. 18), but Uzziah refused to listen and became
enraged at them. He sees their sacred utensils and prepared to make use of them
when God weighed in: he instantly struck Uzziah with leprosy, who fled the
temple in horror and humiliation.

Significantly, it had been acceptable for Uzziah to honor
God in his kingdom, and had been acceptable for Uzziah to enter the temple to
worship God. But when Uzziah attempted to violate the jurisdictional separation
between State and Church - when he sought to be in charge of both the civil and
religious arenas at the same time - God provided a dramatic precedent as a
message of warning to all future generations.

Please understand, I do not share this story from Scripture
for the purpose of a Bible study. Rather, I share this story from the Bible as
a specific example of why members of the Christian community for centuries have
held out for a “Separation of Church and State”, and much of the history of
Europe between the 1600s and 1700s confirms this early Christian understanding
of civil government and religious affairs.

In the first three centuries of Christianity, there had been
no attempt to merge the two separate and distinct God ordained institutions of State
and Church, but that changed when Roman Emperor Theodosius I unilaterally
assumed control of the church and assimilated into the state, decreeing
Christianity is the official religion of his massive empire and declaring all
other religions illegal.[1] With
that edict, the state crossed the boundary God established, and Christianity
became coercive, thus repudiating the voluntariness infused into it by Christ Himself.

Thereafter, emperors of the State regularly made themselves
officers of the Church. It became a time of “the secularization of the Church and
the deprivation of Christianity”[2] - a
time when State leaders wrongly “believed that one of the chief duties of an
imperial ruler was to place his sword at the service of the Church and
orthodoxy”. Because State and Church became one, a Church leader therefore
became a State Official and answered to State authorities, being required to
enforce any religious doctrines the State decreed.

Understandably, widespread atrocities marked this period of
history, and civil and religious rulers (often one and the same) were
frequently ruthless, ever inventing new sadistic tortures and inflicting death
with the same lack of compunction they manifested when squishing a roach in the
putrefied vermin infested dungeons they frequently maintained. A review of Fox’s Book of Martyrs (published in 1563
and some 2,300 pages in length) enumerates the slaughters of countless
thousands of Christians by the so-called Christian leaders.

Because the Church had been taken over by the State, it was
Bible-based ministers who finally stood up and demanded the State separate from
the Church. In fact, English Clergymen Richard Hooker was the first to use the
phrase. King Henry VIII (1491 – 1547) had wanted a divorce, but the church
properly refused to give him one, so he started his own National Church (the
Anglican church), and after decreeing new state established doctrines, he gave
himself a divorce.[3] The
English Parliament also passed laws stipulating who could take communion and
who could be a minister of the Gospel, thus forcefully controlling by Government
and directing what should have been purely ecclesiastical matters.[4]
The Rev. Hooker knew that it was wrong for the State to establish religious
doctrines and dictate beliefs and practices for the Church, so he called for a
“Separation of Church and Commonwealth.”[5]

Other Bible-centered ministers also spoke out against the
intrusion of the State into the jurisdiction of the Church, including the Rev.
John Greenwood (1556 – 1593), who started the congregation attended by many of
the Pilgrims when they still lived in England. At that time, Queen Elizabeth I
was head over both the State and the Church, but Greenwood asserted “That there
could be but one headed to the Church and that was not to be the Queen, but
Christ!”[6] He
was eventually executed for “denying her Majesty’s ecclesiastical supremacy and
attacking the existing ecclesiastical order”. Then when Parliament passed a law
requiring that if “any of her Majesty’s subjects deny the Queen’s
ecclesiastical supremacy… they shall be committed to prison without bail,”[7] most
of the Pilgrims fled England to Holland. They subsequently moved from Holland to
America, where they boldly advocated Separation of Church and State, asserting
that government had no right to “compel religion, to plant churches by power,
and force a submission to ecclesiastical government by laws and penalties.”[8]

Many of the other Christian colonists who came to America
had also been the subjects of Christian persecution at the hands of State leaders
who had taken over the Church. For example, a decade after the Pilgrims settled
in Plymouth, 20,000 Puritans also fled England after many received life
sentences (or had their noses slit, ears cut off, or a brand placed on their foreheads)
for not adhering to state-mandated Anglican teachings. Others coming to America
for similar reasons included Jews facing the Inquisition in Portugal (1654);
Quakers fleeing England after some 10,000 had been imprisoned or tortured
(1680); Anabaptists (Mennonites, Moravians, Dunkers, etc.) All persecuted in
Germany (1683); 400,000 Bible believing Huguenots persecuted in France (1685):
20,000 Lutherans expelled from Austria (1731); etc.

And just as the Pilgrims had come to America advocating the
separation of the State from the Church, other Bible-centered ministers and
colonists traveling from Europe did the same, such as the Rev. Roger Williams
(1603 – 1683), the Rev. John Wise (1652 – 1725), Rev. William Penn (1614 –
1718), and many more. Early American Methodist Bishop Charles Galloway summarized
not only what Bible-believing ministers had concluded, but especially what God
himself had establish as the standard, declaring:

The
miter and the crown should never encircle the same brow. The crozier and the
scepter should never be wielded by the same hand.[9]

Of the four items specifically mentioned (the miter, crown,
crozier, and scepter), to reference the Church, and to the State. Concerning
the Church, the miter was the headgear worn by the high priest in Jewish times (Exodus
28:3 – four, 35 – 37), and later by popes, cardinals and bishops; and the
crozier was the shepherds crook carried by church officials during special
ceremonies. Pertaining to the State, the crown was the symbol of authority
placed upon the heads of Kings, and the scepter was held in their hand as an
emblem of their extensive power (Esther 4:11). Therefore, the metaphor that “the
miter and the crown should never encircle the same brow” meant that the same
person should not be the head of the State and the head of the Church. Galloway’s
phrase only provided a clear and easily understandable visual picture, but it
also referred to specific historical incidents – as when Roman Emperor Otto II
(980 – 1002) constructed his Kings Crown to fit atop the miter worn by the
church officials,[10] thus
wearing the crowns of both State and Church at the same time.

Based on these well-documented facts, the entire history of
the Separation Doctrine had been to prevent the State from meddling with,
interfering against, or controlling the Church’s beliefs and religious
expressions. Consequently, the Separation Doctrine was never used to secularize
the public square and quite the contrary: it existed to protect rather than
remove voluntary public religious practices. As affirmed by early Quaker leader
Will Wood:

The
Separation of Church and State does not mean the exclusion of God,
righteousness, morality, from the state.[11]

The first part of the amendment is now called the “Establishment
Clause,” and the latter part, the “Free Exercise Clause.” The language of both
is clear; and both clauses were pointed solely and specifically at the State, not at
the Church. Notice that the Establishment Clause prohibited the State from
enforcing religious conformity, and the Free Exercise Clause ensured that the
State would protect (rather than suppress, as it currently does) citizen’s
rights of conscious and religious expression. They are prohibitions only on the
power of Congress (the Government or State), not on religious individuals or
organizations. This was the original meaning and intent of “Separation of
Church and State” with which Thomas Jefferson was intimately familiar, and it
was this interpretation that he repeatedly reaffirmed in much of his writings
and practices, not the modern perversion of it.

Also see:"Separation
of Church & State" - What Does it Actually Mean? Part 1

[1] The
entire history of the separation doctrine was to prevent the state from taking
control of religioun and regulating public religious beliefs and expressions;
it was not to secularize remove religious beliefs or expression from public
life. Fordham University, “Medieval Sourcebook: Banning of Other Religions,
Theodosian Code XVI.1.2” (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/theodcodeXVI.html)

[4] “Anglicanism,”
Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/). Also,
see, for example, An Ordinance of the
Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament Together with Rules and Directions
concerning Suspension from the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in Cases of
Ignorance and Scandal (London: John Wright, October 21, 1645).